'A Dead Silence': Reading Jane Austen's Mansfield Park pt2

In the second part of this lecture on ways of reading Jane Austen's 'Mansfield Park', Richard De Ritter examines the literary theorist Edward Said's discussion of the novel and the presence of slavery within the narrative. De Ritter demonstrates that Austen draws upon a character type of the languid, plantation-owner's wife in the creation of Lady Bertram's indolent femininity; a woman who lives in comfort and leisure supported by the slave trade.